The process of printmaking first seduced me when I went to France to study abroad for a few months. At the time I was really struggling to find my aesthetic style, but I was not in love with a media that would help me put my emotions on the page. While in France I met a woman studying for her masters in printmaking. We were fast friends and when she handed me my first block I did not hesitate. I found “thinking backwards” (as she would often put it) came naturally to me. It was the first time I was ever able to use a media as an aid in guiding my work.

Influenced by artists such as Beardsley, Utamaro, and Mucha, I am a product of “Japonisme”.  As an illustrator, I had previously focused on capturing the image of the places before me. My experiences with printmaking and my experiences traveling have encouraged me to capture the life and emotion within the images. Using pattern, composition, color, and technique I contrive whimsical images that are reminiscent of old storybooks and Japanese prints. The artwork I create lends itself a formal storybook quality that plays through emotions, people, and places I have experienced. Each piece is a growing, changing idea that begins with sketches. This idea transforms into a story told through the process of printmaking.

- Jeslyn Cantrell

My artwork maps my journey through life, as I explore the terrains of thought, feeling, perception and experience. This journey has often taken me through the personal and collective "shadow," "down the rabbit hole," and at turns has offered me profound glimpses through hidden doorways. I have found the experience of life a multi-faceted adventure, rife with alchemical possibility, infused with magic and poetry, and this is what I enjoy sharing most in my paintings.

- Simone Skye Coulars

I am a Bay Area-based artist armed with a colorful palette and a critical eye. I received my B.A. from Scripps College where I majored in Latin American studies and minored in studio art. Thus, themes relating to Latin American literature, history, and revolutionary movements are prevalent in my art.

I have been drawing and painting since I was a young girl, but I started taking painting seriously thanks to the encouragement of my stepfather who is a bronze sculptor. Initially the subject matter of my art reflected my relationships with family and friends; however, after selecting Latin American studies as my major in college I became interested in visually representing the histories I was learning about. In this show, I sought to compile pieces that blend both the personal and the historical. These pieces represent how one relates to his or her location and on the other hand how that geographical space impacts the person.

Currently, I work at Making Waves Education Program in Richmond, CA and as an art teacher's assistant at Berkwood Hedge Elementary School in Berkeley, CA. I plan to continue working with youth in the Bay Area and be a part of the movement to bring the arts back to public education. My personal goals are to further refine my artistic skills, explore different mediums, and create create create new work!

To see more work by me, check out my website: http://www.wix.com/isabelclairecohen/art

- Izzy Cohen

Born and raised in the bay area where she spent time as a child with her artist grandma, Eva Kamp, Stacey was learning artistic skills such as painting, photography and pottery. After her grandma's death in 1982, she was inspired to continue her grandmother’s artistic legacy.

She took art classes throughout high school, as well as at Dominican University where she obtained a master’s degree in psychology with a concentration in art therapy. While in college, she started The Art Studio Program at the MIYO Teen Center in San Rafael, becoming the art director, and producing creative activities for at-risk youth. After college, she worked as a career counselor for a time until she found her current position as events manager of the Log Cabin in San Anselmo.

Stacey continues painting with oils, emphasizing color and textures by using only palate knives. Her current subjects are birch trees, focusing on the light and texture of the bark. Her work is usually broken up in to polyptych panels of various sizes.

You can check out her website at: http://staceykamp.tumblr.com/

I attended Academy of Art University in San Francisco starting out as a 3D animation major and switching to illustration. My wide range of interests from pop art, classical paintings, anime, street art and so on allows me to adjust style for each piece I do, picking and choosing different aspects of each influence.  All of this I try to work together into specific moods, personalities, and feelings through use of color, lighting, expressions, environment, and brush strokes.

Janet Williams completed her degree in 2009 in visual arts practice in Dublin, Ireland where she specialized in video and photography. She then moved to fantastically inspiring city of San Francicso in 2010 to just make life better. Since moving, she has been working as a freelance photographer around the bay area, as the studio assistant in hospitality house and as the intern for ArtSpan.

Inspired by the act of day dreaming and the films of David Lynch, Janet has developed this series of photo collages entitled 'Escape'. She achieves the surreal type quality by using colored filters while shooting and then sticking together contrasting imagery which aim to create a place to explore and get lost in.

As Lula says, "This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top."

I grew up in a small mountain town in Colorado and was one of the only teenagers interested in art.  My art teacher would give me supplies from the art closet and just let me do whatever I felt inspired to do. I was essentially self-taught because of the freedom.  I tried art school for a year, and it didn't suit me.  I just became creatively blocked.  

When I was 18, I got very sick and was on the tail end of my experience at art school. I couldn't paint for over a year, and then decided one day that I would try painting with my left hand instead of my dominant right.  A whole new approach sprung out of me! A lot more color. I still use both my hands when painting and my palette is still bright, but my imagery is forming now into something more cohesive. 

Colors inspire me.  So when I go to paint, I usually don't have an image in mind, just colors I want to use. Then the images are formed.  I enjoy the feeling of spreading paint onto the surface I'm working with. Everything quiets down, and I'm able to just create.  This is why I do it.  I enjoy seeing what others are creating.  I feel it is a doorway into seeing who someone is in a way that words usually can't describe.  It's a language I understand.  I have a trunk full of colors, and my heart pours ideas through me.  This is my joy, to paint.

- Chelsea Stern
chelseabriggenart.com